Wednesday, 21 March 2012

24 year old Algerian born Mohamed Merah claims to be a mujahideen and to belong to al-Qaeda.

On 11th March, 2012 we went to buy a motor scooter from an off duty French soldier in a suburb of Toulouse. He shot him in the head.

4 days later he rode a scooter to Montauban and machine gunned three paratroopers as they queued for a cash point. Witnesses described how he had turned over one of the wounded men who was trying to crawl away, and fired three more shots into him.

On Monday 19 March, he attacked the Ozar Hatorah Jewish school in Toulouse. He killed Jonathan Sandler, a 30-year-old rabbi and teacher of religion, and his two sons Gabriel and Arieh, aged four and five. The fourth victim was Myriam Monsonego, seven, daughter of the head teacher, who was reportedly grabbed by the hair and shot in the head.

French police surrounded Merah at a small block of flats in Toulouse, where he opened fire when approached. He was said to be armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle, an Uzi machine-gun and several handguns.

It s reported that he visited Pakistan twice, in 2010 and 2011. According to French newspaper Le Monde, he trained with militants in Pakistan before crossing the border into Afghanistan.

Merah had been arrested for bomb making in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in 2007 and he was sentenced to three years in jail for planting bombs. He escaped jail along with up to 1,000 prisoners, including 400 Taliban insurgents, during a Taliban attack on southern Afghanistan’s main prison in June 2008.

Amazingly, he managed to carry out these murders whilst under surveillance by French anti-terrorist operatives.

He was shot dead by a police marksman while trying to shoot his way out of a Toulouse apartment after shooting three police officers when they stormed the building. Police subsequently fond that Merah had filmed his murders and say he was intending to publish the films on the internet.

Given that he was wearing a bullet proof vest, and that the marksman had to go for a head shot I think we should applaud his skill for a job well done. Over to you, Nick!

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